clc day 6

[Music] [Music] welcome back to session number six. we're literally halfway in this journey. can you believe we have gotten this far? isn't it amazing? if you have been doing the exercises, then you're probably starting to feel more comfortable using the skills you're learning. remember, practice, practice, practice. that is really the secret. that is going to make this stick. i'm curious, have you noticed the difference already in your approach for creating, dusting, changing others? i'd like for you to answer that question for yourself, but i'm sure many of you are feeling like almost like neo in the matrix. do you remember the movie where he starts seeing things in slow motion? well, that's really what you start experiencing. i mean, you start seeing, you know, these patterns of people asking questions and people just making comments without asking questions. you really connect with people's leverage. you really see how people interrupt their patterns.

well, today we're gonna continue moving forward and adding more tools to your belt. we're now in step four of the seven master steps of creating lasting change: define the problem in solvable terms. after you begin to do step one, understand and appreciate a person's world, step two, obtain leverage, and step three, interrupt the pattern, you've now got to break a problem or challenge down to something that can be solved and achieved so a person can find a new and better way to meet the needs they value most. people often trap themselves by making their problem much bigger than it really is or by defining their challenge in unresolvable terms. in other words, they may feel stuck or paralyzed by their problems. the story they have built in their own mind. sometimes our mind comes up with this creative tricks to build this impossible challenges or impossible things to resolve. they are either so big that they are unable to target the change, or they use language and beliefs that trigger certainty that change is impossible. so the key is to redefine the problem in a way that can be solved.

let me give you a very simple example. i many times talk with my clients about the distinction between being a victim or a player. the victim is a typical person that thinks that things happen to them. "oh, my boss is too hard on me." "oh, they didn't give me the promotion." "all these clients are unpredictable." or "we cannot predict with this macro context." while the players, the person always sees himself at the center stage of the story. the player would say, "it's not that clients are unpredictable, it's that i haven't yet found a way to predict my client's behaviors." "it's not that my boss is really hard to deal with, it's that i haven't yet found a way to interact with my boss more effectively." that's a player. while the victim thinks that things happen to them, the player sees himself at the center stage of the story. and that's the starting point in order for him to be able to drive action towards a change. there's a phrase that i really love that says, "if you don't see yourself as part of the problem, you won't see yourself as part of the solution." so victim suits you in the short term because it's really tempting. it's offering you innocence. that eventually works against you because it makes you completely powerless.

in this session, we're gonna focus on two skills to help you be a master at defining the problem in a way that's solvable. the first skill is looking at and identifying patterns. to be a master at pattern recognition, in this skill, tony is going to help you be aware of the importance of patterns and how to look for them in order to help others. when defining the problem in solvable terms, you need to look at the patterns that could be the root or cause of the problem. remember, we talked about the six human needs and a person's model of the world. those are patterns. when you go to define the problem in a way that's solvable, you need to look at the person's patterns. maybe it's one of their beliefs from their map, like a rule or value that is the source of the problem, or it's a pattern of how they're meeting one of their needs. being able to identify and change a disempowering pattern is a lot easier than focusing on changing a general problem. when you define a problem, you want to be able to set the person up to win by identifying a problem in easy, solvable terms.

the second skill tony will teach you is what we call the elements of evaluation. many problems are a result of the decisions we are making or have made, and more specifically, the way we are making those decisions. tony will go through the process of how we make decisions and then help you understand the different ways we evaluate anything going on around us and how those evaluations may be the cause of our problems. in fact, the problem may simply be making a shift in how we evaluate something. after all, aren't evaluations just another type of pattern? i certainly think so. all right, we have a lot of great skills to learn today in this session, so let's get started.

[Music] what you got to understand is pattern recognition is power. when you can recognize a pattern, you can save an immense amount of time. when you recognize a pattern, you can predict things. when you recognize a pattern, you're able to anticipate. and let me tell you something, anticipation is the competitive edge in life. when you can anticipate what's going to happen before it occurs, it gives you an immense advantage in anything: sports, business, relationship, life, yourself, understanding yourself. and so, a good deal of what you're really going to be doing is really pattern recognition. for example, knowing those six human needs is amazing pattern recognition because what it allows you to do is take unlimited amount of stimuli, unlimited amount of data and information, and people's facial expressions, things they say to you, and things they'll do. there's unlimited amount that come at you, but you can filter it all, know that all really just means one of six things. that is immense power because it frees you up. that's how i can go on a date with destiny. i have all these different countries, there are people who speak in different languages, and some people that are psychotic, and some people that are, you know, totally successful, all in the same room. have them stand up. no matter what they do, i know i can handle it because i know all i got to know is the targets, and i already know them all. all i got to do is see which ones are kind of missing for them right now. all i got to know what's preventing them, and there's only three things. and all i know is how to change them. there's just seven. it doesn't matter what they say, what they do. now, how to go about it is nice because i have unlimited ways to go about it, but ultimately, it only comes down to those three things. that took me years to figure that out. now you can start out there by pattern recognition. that gives you a huge, huge advantage. you don't go through the pain i went through. you don't have to go through all the massive lessons you wouldn't want to have to go through. you don't spend all the time and energy. you can come and in a short period of time get the value of that. that's pattern recognition.

pattern recognition is wonderful. pattern utilization is much better. you guys start recognizing what's going on, or you guys can start using what you've learned. and that's my goal here is to get you to go into pattern utilization. ultimately, what you'll get to if you're really committed is pattern creation, where you literally, because you understand so much of the principles, you're able to create things that produce a result. and the natural steps are first to recognize the pattern, then utilize it, and then eventually you'll start creating your own things because it's just natural because we are creative beings and we understand stuff. our brain finds better ways to do it. now, i say that to you because you wouldn't survive without pattern recognition. if there was a fire right now, how would you know what to do? pattern recognition. you know that if you're in a room, there's always an exit or two because you wouldn't have gotten in without one. and you know when you get that exit, regardless of what language, no matter where you are, you know there's a way in or out. and you know there aren't that many opportunities. aren't that many patterns, are they? how many ways is getting out? what you got to do, turn it one way, the other, up or down, or push, right? so you don't have to freaking go, "oh my god, you know, what's the combination to this safe so i can get out of the building while it's burning?" you know, there's only a few patterns, and you recognize them. now, there was a time in your life when you didn't understand these patterns, and you were trapped in a room when you're very small, right? and even though you wanted out, could you have the best of intent and total drive? it's still not out of the room, yes or no? because you just didn't understand the pattern. so what i want you to get is desire is not enough. now, desire tends to help you eventually find the solution, but you can get very old and very wise that way. so if we want to compress time, when we get good at pattern recognition, it is so true in everything you look at. it's the advantage in sports. you know, one of the best examples, you know, i got to go watch Wayne Gretzky retire, watch his last game. it was really an emotionally moving event there at the Garden in New York. and to see this man, he's such a good man, he's been such a person who's delivered for his fans over and over and over again. but here's a guy that, i've told the story before, he's not the biggest, he's not the strongest, he's not the fastest, but he's the best in history. and when i asked him that, when i worked at the Kings, his response was, "you know, i'm not the biggest, no, i'm not the strongest, of stuff, but," he said, "i think maybe my advantage is everybody else skates to where the puck is. i skate to where the puck is going." he'd see all these people coming at him at full speed. he studied all of them enough that he could literally, he knew they only had so many patterns. this player only has so many ways to deal with the situation in his brain. in milliseconds, recognize the guy's face, recognize the pattern, and he would anticipate it and go where he's gonna go. that's how he beat everybody. pattern recognition. that's it.

my favorite example is baseball. if you were to write out a phrase like "to hit a baseball in the world series," and the time it took you to say the word "two," the baseball left the pitcher's hand and passed the batter. two. that's all it takes. it takes four tenths of a second for that baseball to leave the pitcher's hand and pass the plate. now think about that, not even a half second. now, this is one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult, aspect of sports. that means that a person has to, from the time the ball leaves the pitcher's hand, he has one tenth of a second to decide whether to swing or not. one tenth of a second. then he has to initiate that swing, which takes two tenths of a second, and he completes it in one tenth. if he doesn't make the decision within one tenth of a second, faster than you can say the word "to," choose the whole process, faster than you can say that, he had to decide, and he decides wrong. now he's going to swing and miss, or he's going to watch something that may be a strike. that's the most difficult sport in the world. i'll tell you why. the best players on the face of the earth are wrong 70% of the time. they fail 70% of the time. so unless you learn how to deal with frustration and rejection and failure, you can't play professional baseball. you certainly will never get to that point. those guys have to deal with more failure than anybody imagines. can you imagine there's something in life that really mattered to you, and you were gonna fail 70% of the time? if you were the best in history, now that's incredibly hard, incredibly hard. so how do they succeed when they finally do it? the way they succeed is pattern recognition. now, all this is happening so fast. how does he do it? the only way a professional baseball player is able to hit that ball is before the ball is released, they decide whether it's going to be a curveball, a slider, where the case would be. they can't wait till it's completely released. they just prove this recently, this big scientific article about it. because what they do is they know the pattern of the pitcher, and then as the ball is just about to be released, they make their decision, and they're wrong 70% of the time if they're the best. but they do that. the ones that succeed can figure it out 30% of the time, and that allows them to initiate and go. he goes. so what, tony? it's baseball. i'm here to figure out, change my life, and help people and be a leader. well, take up the reality here. think about this. Michael Jordan is a fairly great high eye-hand coordination. now, Michael Jordan, nobody is as good as he is, but he wouldn't play baseball. how well would he do? he was pathetic. why? because he has great eye-hand coordination, but with something that's fixed and not moving, he does not know how to deal with the ball coming at him at 100 miles an hour, not knowing in a tenth of a second what it's going to be. so he couldn't. so he went back to what he's good at, stationary object, eye-hand coordination. he understood that one, that one is well trained. he had more distinctions on that chord. he sure didn't have it on a baseball field. okay, so the reason I tell you this is those batters are able to anticipate are the ones that succeed, and they anticipate because they recognize the pattern, literally before it occurs. you guys follow me on this? before the ball is released.

now, if you are successful in financial training, how many of you have been through Wealth Mastery? then you know that all finances are is pattern recognition. that's all it really is. and there are certain patterns that I taught you there, I'm going to teach you physically, but I laid out for you there for you to go through. that if you go through those patterns, you will succeed financially. there is no question because they're based on organizing principles that consistently work no matter what you do. that is things like the bucket theory, not individual investments, right? your asset allocation, certain elements like taking that certain percentage and growing it. those elements will work no matter what. they allow you to anticipate what to do to get the result you want. okay, if you don't anticipate, what's the price? massive pain, disappointment, frustration, overwhelm. so one of the things I want to talk to you about tonight is the anticipation. all the time, people want to deal with what's going on with them. but if you remember, we talked a lot about the model of somebody's world, the way they look at life. so what I want to remind you of is that everybody's model of the world is based on trying to meet the same six needs, right? so we all want the same six needs. but what makes people different is how they go about it. and how they go about it is based upon a model of the world, a set of beliefs, a set of principles, a set of values, a set of rules, a bunch of things that tell them, "this is what you got to do in order to ring the bell and feel the pleasure and not the pain, to feel significant, to feel loved, to feel connection, get fulfilled." so what determines how they do it is people have significant emotional events. they had something happen that was so intense that their brain went, "oh my god, I never want that to happen again." so they developed the model. "okay, when in doubt, keep your mouth shut." global belief. will that affect their life and the way they function? yes or no? why do they live by that belief? because they had such significant emotional what? pain. or they did something really young and they got all this attention for it, all this love for it, and they developed a belief that says, "be funny." right? if you can find a way to be funny, you get all this love. everyone's got different models. and within the models, there's all kinds of elements. but one of the things I want you to get is if you're going to be a leader, a leader has got to be able to affect people at many different levels. a leader's got to affect who first? you got to lead first yourself. which means you got to be able to take yourself from a state where you're overwhelmed, you're tired, you're frustrated, you're burnt, you're angry, or sad, whatever, and you got to change how fast? in a heartbeat. your ability to change your state in a heartbeat is the minimum level of mastery you got to start with. okay? the second level is your ability to not just change your state in the moment, but to find a situation that incredibly difficult situation, when you normally just don't manage your state, and link it so that that situation puts you in a great state, where the very thing that used to make you your worst, now makes you your best, where literally the trigger for pain becomes the trigger for pleasure, the trigger for weakness now becomes a trigger for strength. that's level two of personal mastery. that's what you got to do. you got to be able to master not just really changing a moment, but really, if you got to always remember to change, you got a problem. you got to pick those situations that scare you the most and go look that tiger in the face and train that tiger so you are the tiger's master instead of the tiger mastering you. you got to take some of the tiger shows up, you show up at your best, right? you want to make it so the tiger triggers it. the third level of personal mastery is when you can create a model of the world where you don't have the tigers, or you create a model of the world where you spend most of your time in the peak state, most of your time when you feel centered and strong, most your time when you feel fulfilled. your way of looking at life gives you more fulfillment. your way of looking at life, things used to make you crazy, now make you centered. it's not just one thing, it's the whole area. in order to do that, you're gonna have to change some of your model worlds, your belief structures, your rules, maybe your primary question, if you remember that. does this make sense? so personal mastery is three levels: the ability to change your state in a moment, your ability to change state in an environment or context, which means a situation where it automatically triggers you, and ultimately your ability to live in a great state. that's how you personally master yourself. that level of mastery you must develop to lead, right? it's just like saying, "okay, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to lead these people." "there they go, and I must follow quickly, for I am their leader." you know, I'm going to provide certainty to somebody, and I don't have any certainty within myself. you have to create it within yourself. but the second level of mastery, going beyond personal mastery, is when you're able to take another individual and help them change how fast? in a heartbeat. that's the first level of your helping somebody else, right? the second level is you can help somebody else to pick the environments where their boogeymen are, the environment where their tigers are, and trigger it so the tiger for them makes them stronger. well, you're able to do that for them. and the third level is where you can help them change their way, model the world, so that you can find those elements that make them nuts, help them to change that, so now many situations, all of them, the majority of them, are handled on a large scale, okay? the third level of mastery, though, the third major level of mastery, is when you're able to do all three of these things with groups of people simultaneously. so if you think about it, first you got to do you at these three levels, then you got to be able to do an individual. that's when you can become a coach. then you got to be able to do it with groups of people. that's when you can really lead. does that make sense? okay, so what you got to do, you take a group of people and get a whole group of people to instantly change their way state. you guys figure out how to get that rapport and connection and how to get this group of people to change on a dime. the second, you've got to do is you've got to help figure out what triggers this group as a whole to go into a down state, and you've got to create the environment that makes you stronger. and the third thing you gotta do is figure out how to create a culture within the company, within the team, within the division, within whatever it is you're trying to manage, where the culture itself creates a model looking at the world that significantly causes the majority of those people to live in a peak state, to contribute, and to expand. does this make sense? that's the level of leadership we're going for. now, to do that, does it make sense? you've got to get good at pattern recognition, pattern utilization, at least, yes or no? because that's the only way you'll do it. because when you got a group of people, if I got to stop and look at every person and scratch my head and think through what could make it happen, it'll never happen. but if I know there are only so many patterns and I can recognize them, I'm Gretzky, I can go there before they get there. if you made a date with us, and you'll see me and some people, "how did you know? how could you possibly have known this?" because there are only so many patterns, and I've seen them all, and I can anticipate. I know that gives me the edge. you're still trying to figure it out. I know. I know what they're trying to communicate before they finish. you've had that experience, haven't you? so what we want to do is enhance that experience. we want to give you that edge.

[Music] so as tony just said, how do you get that edge as a pattern recognition master? how do you gain that ability to identify the root of a problem quickly? what are patterns you can look for to create lasting change? and what patterns are you noticing that could be the cause of a person's problem? already, you've learned a handful of patterns to look for patterns that could contribute to a person's success or a person's challenges. those are the patterns of how a person is meeting their six human needs, patterns in a person's model of the world, or patterns in a person's triad: their physiology, focus, and language. when you can discover a negative pattern that is the root of a problem, you can then define solving the problem in a way that is achievable. when you recognize a pattern, you can predict things, you can anticipate, and you can quickly get to the source of a problem. we're going to learn in our next skill set that there are also patterns of evaluating, patterns in how a person is evaluating, patterns in the questions a person is asking themselves, or patterns of the states they go to. as I mentioned earlier in the session, many problems are the result of the decisions we are making or have made, and specifically the way we are making those decisions. in this next session, tony will explain the process of decision making and the elements of a person's system for evaluating. how does someone evaluate information, a situation, or an issue? is a person's system for evaluating causing problems for them? oftentimes, as you learn, the state we are in or the questions we are asking ourselves could be the root of our problem. what way of evaluating needs to be changed to help solve this problem and prevent similar problems in the future? you will also learn what a neural association is and how that neural association may be the link to what is causing the problem. so let's bring back the big guy, Tony Robbins.

[Music] destiny is the study of consequences. study and destiny is a study and consequences because if you think about it, the quality of your life, how it turns out, is the consequence of a variety of things that have happened before. if you take one action versus another action, you're gonna have very different consequences in your life. you're gonna have a very different life. it's interesting to see what people's beliefs are about destiny. ultimately, destiny is who are you gonna become and what are you gonna contribute in your lifetime? because everything else is going to go away. someone else is going to own your cars, someone else is going to own your home, because sooner or later, you're going to be worm food. and the only thing that's going to last is who you became. that's the part that being upon your spiritual beliefs, maybe you take into the next realm. and if you don't have any spiritual beliefs, it's the only thing people are going to remember. they're going to remember who you became and what you contributed. that's the only thing you have any hope of remembering, any hope of taking with you. so that's your ultimate destiny. who are you going to become? what are you going to contribute in your lifetime? which means you have a destiny up until this moment. if your life ended right now, you could probably define very clearly who you've become and what you've contributed or failed to contribute or failed to become. so something can be measured in time, not just some day when you get there, but the ultimate destiny is where you're going to end up in that area. so if we're going to study consequences, we're going to say, what are the things we need to study to ultimately become who we want to be and contribute? we want to contribute in our lifetime. so when you look at that, you begin to realize that everything in life has four parts to it. everything has four parts. and that is, everything in life is a cause set in motion, and for every cause, there's going to be a what? an effect. now, if you think, "is that a cause?" "that emotion?" yes or no? oh, yes. let's say you think about a situation of like cheating on your spouse. thinking about that thought, does it have an effect in your body, in your psyche, in your belief structures, in your feeling about yourself and about your identity? yes or no? and then for every effect, if you go to that cause again, if you think it more than once, or you, if you overeat, is that a cause? that emotion? is it going to have an effect on your body in that moment? yes or no? but if you overeat again, you think that thought again, you take that action again, that effect builds on the last effect, and it creates a direction. a direction. and for every direction, there is an ultimate destination or destiny. does that make sense? so if you want to think about cause, in other words, for cause, another word for it could be action, couldn't it? because when you think, "is that an action in your body?" yes or no? good. if you do something physical, is that an action? yes or no? so then you could really say that our actions are shaping our destiny. see? well, that's pretty obvious. but you notice something? it's not instantly affecting your destiny. there's what we call here a lag time. this is the good news and the bad news. lag time means very simply that when you take an action, there is an effect, but it doesn't affect your destiny unless you take that action a few other times, or it's stacked on past actions. do you follow me on this? in other words, you don't just get to a destiny. you have to be heading in that direction for a while. to be heading in that direction for a while, you have to have accumulated several effects, right? in order to do that, you had to take action on a fairly consistent basis, either consciously or unconsciously, in that direction. so it's not like you screw up one time and your whole destiny is destroyed. that's pretty rare. but similarly, you suddenly go on a diet and you eat well for one week. you don't suddenly get the body you deserve. fact, actually, you have the body you deserve. you don't get the body you desire, isn't that true? "I've been eating well for two weeks now." yeah, but you ate like a pig for 40. okay, there's a little lag time between when you start doing the right thing and you get enough positive effects to create a direction that you ultimately get where you want to go. that's the bad news. you don't instantly get rewarded. the good news is you don't actually get penalized instantly. if you screw up one time here, you think this thought, or you do this thing, and you have a negative effect, it doesn't instantly destroy your destiny. you have to accumulate some critical mass before you get there. just like in finances. does this make sense? so lag time is your friend if you understand it. it also, if you're doing the right thing and you're not where you want to be yet, and you start to question, "oh my god, I'm not being rewarded." just remind yourself that you're in lag time. and if you stop suddenly and give up, you'll never get where you want to go. and if you stick with it, you may be right on the verge, that tipping point, you know, where you get the point, that tipping point, it just crashes over the other side. you may get right where you want to be, but you're giving up too soon because you gave up your faith when you're just in lag time.

now, you might say, "okay, tony, then I got to work on my actions." well, yes, but what shapes all actions is decisions. all actions are fathered by decisions. the child is not possible without the fathering of that child or the mothering of that child, whichever metaphor you'd prefer. but that's what makes it, that's the seed. there's no such thing as an action without a decision first. now, the decision may be unconscious in nature, but you made a decision before you took action, conscious or unconscious, is there. so what really shapes our destiny is our what? decisions. how many would agree with that? say "I." now, if you think about your life and you look at the last ten years, your life, I'd be willing to bet you could think of decisions you made that if you made a different decision, your life would be radically different, better or worse, I'm not sure, but radically different. you agree? think of some of those decisions. decisions like, who are you going to love? who are you going to count as a friend? what are you going to do for a living? are you going to have children? are you going to go to Date With Destiny Fiji? you know, are you going to leave this area? you're going to leave the situation? are you going to begin something new? are you going to start your own company? you know, are you going to discipline your kid here or let it go by? all those little decisions, radical. what you're going to eat from your dinner plate each night, seems like a little decision, but it accumulates into an ultimate destiny of a heart attack, or the body you'd really desire, or the energy you deserve. you follow me on this? so the decisions are what shape your destiny. and what's so great about that is, I know you know this intellectually. this is not a new conversation, but you got to get associated to that power because all change is nothing but decision. you don't like your job, change it. you like your business, change it. you don't like who you work with, change it. you like your relationship, change it. you don't like how you feel right now, change it. you like your energy level, change it. you don't feel you're connected to God, change it. now, you change it. you make a what? a real decision. you don't state a preference. "I like to, I should, I try, I ought to." you decide. you cut off any possible except the thing you're committed to. and when you do that, you set in motion a cause, effect, direction, and destination or destiny that you really want consciously, instead of reacting unconsciously to the environment.

now, why don't we do that? why don't we do these things? because our decisions are controlled by what we link pain and pleasure to. or maybe even a more specific way of describing this is, our decisions are shaped by the way we evaluate. before you make a decision, every one of you in this room has a system for evaluating your decisions, a system for deciding is something worth it or not, for deciding whether or not this would be something good or bad for your life, whether something's too expensive or just right, whether it's worth the stretch or not, whether you should make love or walk away, whether you should marry or divorce, whether you should have a child or not, whether or not you should ask for the promotion or not. you have a system for evaluating things. and this system is more powerful than a single decision. how many followers think of it as like the system itself is the hardware, and the values and beliefs and elements of that system as the software? so we want to look at the system for evaluating. at its base, at its base, at its most simple level, all decisions are based on our need to avoid what or to gain what? here's the problem, though. what happens is, your brain clearly knows what to do when a situation is pleasurable, it's going to move towards it. and it's painful, it's going to move what? away from it. here's where the problem happens. when there's this choice to be made, all right? here's this choice, and your brain links both pain and pleasure to it. that's when your brain freaks out. that's when you start trying to figure out what to do. and by the way, if it links equal amounts of pain and pleasure, which one will it do? will it work harder to avoid this or harder to get this? where will it put its priority? avoiding pain. because it's a survival instinct. because if I have consistent pain, it can mean damage. consistent damage equals death. so in our unconscious, avoiding pain is a higher priority than the desire for pleasure. now, we're going to make this choice. what determines whether we do it or not is not the reality, but what we have learned to associate pain or pleasure to. so it's all about association. and by the way, when your brain is trying to figure out what things mean, you got to understand something. anytime your brain experiences a significant amount of pain or pleasure, it immediately wants to know the source of it. why does it want to know the source of it when it experiences a significant amount of pain and pleasure? why? yeah, because if it's pleasurable, I want to get it again. the brain says. and if it's painful, I must what? avoid it. I better know what it is. but does our brain always accurately come up with the real, the real cause? yes or no? and the reason is because the brain uses three criteria to decide what is the source of our pain. and very often, it misinterprets one of these, and then you spend your whole life reacting to things that aren't true, and then you wonder why you're not following through, you're not achieving what you want. and those three elements, I can demonstrate for you. I use this metaphor, I like it. if you can imagine a baby crawling along a countertop. okay? so here's this baby. he's crawling along a countertop. when the baby gets the edge of this countertop and looks down, a little baby, may it be possible the baby could step over the edge and bam, splat all over the place? is that possible? why? stupid baby. good thing, sir. why? because someone said, because the baby has no what? references. okay, so the baby goes down, splat, bam, there we go. okay, here's this baby, splat all over the place. now, if the baby survives, the baby's probably gonna have a significant amount of what? pain. by the way, is this a significant emotional event? yes or no? so when the baby has this significant emotional event called pain, the brain of that baby is going to go, "what is the source here? what's the cause of this?" the brain is going to use several criteria. the first one it's going to look for is what's unique to the situation. unique is the first thing. so I got pain. what's unique to this moment that wasn't happening before? and so the baby goes, splat. nobody looks around and sees green carpet. there's green carpet everywhere. hmm, I wasn't seeing green before. I was in pain. now I see green. I'm in pain. second criteria is what's happened recently? what's happening? it's the law of recency. it's called what's happening about the moment I'm having the pain, about the moment I had pain. the only unique thing that happened about that moment was green. there was green carpet. green is unique, and it happened about the moment. I wasn't seeing green before, and I wasn't in pain. so the unique recent thing was green carpet. and the last thing it uses is consistency. so it's URC. I think it was University Robbins California, whatever works for you. the C is consistency. when something happens consistently about the same moment you have pain, that's unique. your brain goes, "that's the source." now, the challenge with this is how many times has something required before it's consistent? well, it depends on the situation and the person's nervous system. some people, it hasn't happened once, and they go, "you always do that." you go, "always?" one time. well, that's always, just like some people value certainty more than others. do you follow me on this? some people have it, have to have 50 times before they look up in their head that these things are linked together, because they may value variety more, as an example, or their nervous system is just wired differently. so let's say the baby crashes. is it possible the baby's not certain what caused the pain? is that possible? yes or no? what if the next day, the baby is crawling on this countertop, gets the same spot, is it possible the baby can step over the edge and crash again? yes or no? why? really stupid baby. thank you. no, you can't say the baby doesn't have references. the baby does have references, true or false? does the baby have references? yes or no? yes, but those references are not linked to consequences in the nervous system. see, many of you have done things and you said, "why do I do that again? what am I stupid? what am I sabotaging myself?" no, what you are doing is you've never linked up. you may have linked up intellectually, but you've never linked up in your gut, in your nervous system, that doing this equals that. you know intellectually doing this equals that, but you haven't done it in your nervous system. so your body doesn't keep you from doing it. how many follow? in fact, what you link is by getting a relationship. why do I get relationships like this? I always do this. what's the matter with me? am I trying to hurt myself? no, you've not linked in your nervous system doing that equals pain. you've linked that going in relationship equals pleasure, mostly. so you do it anyway. it's not that you're dumb. it's not that you're sabotaging, because you haven't linked it up. you haven't linked up a URC that's specific. you haven't created what's called a neuro association. so the baby will splat again. now, does the baby have a significant amount of pain? yes or no? you bet. so now the baby's going, "what is unique and recent here?" look around. I got pain. there's green carpet again. about the same time, there was no pain a few moments ago, and there's no green carpet. and last time I was in pain, there was green carpet. I now know the source. that's enough time. I don't need more pain. green carpet equals pain. now, will the baby avoid green carpet? yes or no? the baby's gonna start screaming. green starts coming around. they see green carpet. they're screaming. what's the matter with this baby? and then one day, they'll be climbing on somebody else's countertop, look down, and see blue carpet, and splat. they're gonna go down again. how many followers? it's not the baby's stupids. they haven't linked it up. now, babies are the only ones that do this. how many of you have been in a relationship? the relationship ended. it was so painful, and then you went, "relationships equal pain." so then you avoided relationships for a long time. and then you went, "look at them, they're having a relationship, so happy. is what I really want." "oh my god." and then you got a relationship. but then the minute they started doing anything that looked like your last relationship, you panicked. and when this is that, and then you sabotage it, ran from it, or created a problem with it. how many have done this? okay, it's not relationships. it's not men, and it's not women, although many men or women will tell you that's what it is because they'll tell you their what? references. like, you're in somebody's form, they're talking about they want a relationship, but they're talking to all their friends, and their friends say, "all the good ones are taken." those are friends I'd hate to meet your enemies. so other people with low standards for their life now infect yours. and since they're your peers, you tend to agree with them. and be so careful. so one of the simplest examples I can tell you is, I know people. like a woman one time, I was talking about this in a seminar years ago, a Date With Destiny in Toronto. and when I got up, this woman, her eyes got this big, and she goes, "oh my god, now I understand." she goes, "I'm going to show you something." and she reached onto her hair and she yanked her hair off, and it looked like her scalp came off, and she was totally bald underneath. and everybody's like, "whoa." you know, and she said, "I have been pulling out all of my hair in my head since I was nine years old." and I said, "why?" and she said, "because when I was six, my father started sexually molesting me, and he would do it every night until one time, I was nine. I was just freaking out, so scared, I ripped the patch of my hair out in front of him, and he freaked out, and he stopped sexually molesting me." she said, "so then I always did was I pulled it all out so they wouldn't molest me." I said, "well, your father's still alive." she knows. "he's been dead for 10 years." I said, "well, have you been raped since then?" she goes, "yes, several times." I said, "you wear a wig, right?" she goes, "yeah." I said, "why?" she goes, "well, because I want to be pretty." this is why you pull out your hair. she goes, "I guess because I've linked up a long time ago, I pulled my hair, I wouldn't get raped." makes no sense whatsoever. had nothing to do with it. nothing to do with other men. nothing to do with other relationships. so we're able to break the pattern. or at a woman who was an amazing artist in San Francisco, amazing. and for two and a half years, she couldn't paint one painting. so I was brought in to turn it around. it became very obvious. she had a great relationship, the greatest relationship of her life with a man, and it was the most passionate relationship of her life. she never loved so much, never felt so much love coming back, so much your whole life, the most intimacy, great sensuality, sexuality. and one day, bam, overnight, it ended. he left her. and he never explained why. just, "listen, I can't take this. I have to be my own person." he left. so when she, in a significant emotional event in pain, or her brain looked for what's unique about the situation. what was unique about this relationship? you know what she came up with? passion. there was more passion in this relationship than anywhere else. and there was passion right before the pain. so, and consistently was passionate. therefore, passion equals pain. so what she did is anytime she'd get passionate, her unconscious mind would freak out. and so she'd kill her passion. well, passion is what made her a great artist. so now she couldn't paint. so I said to her, I said, "let me ask you a question. does passion equal pain?" when you were

Feeling passionate with this man? Were you in pain? she said.

Well, no. It's no stop. And we really get this. When you were feeling passion with this man, were you in pain? she said. No, I said. You're only in pain when you were sad. You're only in pain when you were angry. You're only in pain when you kept thinking about a sense of loss. Loss equals pain. Frustration equals pain. Anger equals pain. Passion didn't equal pain. And I watched your brain like, start to process this until her eyes start jiggling. You could see her make this connection.

I said, the truth of the matter is, you don't know what end of this relationship at all. You've never figured out. You generalized too quickly. It wasn't passion that killed it. It was that he had different values than you had. Because he had a different vision, or he had some fear that showed up. Had nothing to do with you whatsoever. Or he really wasn't in love, but he didn't want to tell you because he didn't want to hurt you. And finally, one day, he couldn't take any more. He made a decision. Who only knows. But it wasn't passion that killed it.

And when we were able to change that pattern, to get a link back up, all of a sudden, bam! Our passion flowed. Number one, she started painting again. Six months later, she's in a great relationship. What happens to us is because of our pain. When we create this association that's incorrect, we create what's called a false neuro-association. A false neuro-association. We start linking pain, the very thing that would give us pleasure. And by the way, when that happens, will our brain avoid it, even though it's what we really need and want? Yes or no? You bet.

I'll tell you what's worse is what I showed you earlier. This is an example of what I call a mixed neuro-association. Meaning, you mix both pain and pleasure into the same thing. It's like, for a lot of men, getting married for the first time, they freak out. You've never seen this in males. It's unbelievable. It's because they have mixed their associations. They want the marriage for a variety of reasons. They associate pleasurable things, love, connection, whatever. But they also mix lack of freedom, lack of choice, lack of whatever. They freak out. Most women, culturally, link more pleasure to that particular event. As long as you mix no associations, you're going to move two feet forward, one foot back, or two feet back and one foot forward. And you're not going to ever be able to resolve things. And you're going to call yourself a sabotager. You're not sabotaging. You just have mixed emotions. You have mixed neural associations.

So what I want to show you now is, this is a simplistic view. I want to show you what controls all your decisions is pain and pleasure. But you have a system for arriving in your head as to whether it equals pain or pleasure. It's not as simple as I just showed you. In most cases, some things are right. Like, if I said to many of you, "Okay, this afternoon's program is skydiving. Who's coming?" Raise your hand. Okay. Who's not coming? Okay. And you guys, I want you on the edge. You could go either way. Okay. The either ways have mixed associations, right? The ones I'm in have what link to it? Quick. And the ones there's no way, I got pain linked to it. You guys follow me?

If I ask you a more complex decision that requires many evaluations, then you're going to make decisions differently. Now, by the way, all the people said they'd go, wouldn't go for the same reasons. Some people go because they want an adventure. Some people go because they want out of class. Some people go because they want to be able to tell other people about the significant thing they did. Some people go for the variety. Some people go because they know if they don't, other people are going to judge them. See, while you may make the same decision as another person, you'll decide in a different way based on your system.

So I now want to show your system because I'm going to give you the overview. This so you understand it. Okay? You're going to know how yours runs because I'm going to show you kind of the hardware. Then how you run that hardware is based on what you put in it, the input you put into it. And we're going to find out how you drive it. And then we're going to show you to change it. And it will change everything because it will change all your decisions, not by working on your decisions, but working on the source of your decisions. And that's where you have lifelong change. Does that make sense?

So now let's look at the process of evaluation. Because as we said, destiny is shaped by decisions, but decisions are shaped consistently by your system of evaluating. So why don't you jot down a few notes? First, write down this: The quality of my life is the quality of my evaluations. The quality of my life is the quality of my evaluations. What does that mean? Ultimately, your life is not driven by what happens to you. It's driven by the decisions you make, right? It's not the events of your life. It's your decisions. But your decisions are controlled by the way you evaluate.

So write this down: Superior evaluations create a superior life. Superior evaluations create a superior life. If you look at anyone in the world who is superior at anything to you, the reason they're superior is they have superior evaluation capability in that area specifically. You meet somebody who's better at investing, trading. That person is superior in evaluating what to invest in and what not to, and at what time. Isn't that true? They have a system for evaluating investments that's better than yours. If somebody's better at singing, it's not that they're so much more talented. It's that they have a superior way of evaluating with their ear and with their body what needs to be done in order to produce the kinds of sounds that will impact people at the level they desire. Somebody's superior and dancing. They have superior evaluations about what movements, what timing, what tension will produce the result that they want. Somebody's got a great relationship. You don't. They're superior to evaluating how to deal with the upsets, the frustrations, the loves, the opportunities in a relationship than you do. Does that mean that they are smarter than you are? Yes or no? No. It means they're better at evaluating things. And so if you want a superior life, you got to develop superior evaluations.

So in any context that exists in humanity where anyone is outstanding at anything, all you have to adopt is some of their tools for evaluation. You can massively improve the quality of your life, massively. And so I'm constantly studying not only what people do, but why they do it. What's their system for evaluating it? That's what gives me power in the context that I enter in, in business, for example. And that's what I want you to have in any context that you desire.

So to do that, you have to understand that there are elements to evaluation. And the first element that affects how we evaluate things is the most important one. And the reason we talk about it and we do it is because it is the seminal or foundational element that affects the way you think, feel, and make decisions. And that is the state you are in. The state you're in. Because the state you're in determines how you evaluate. When you are worried, do you make the same evaluations, the same decisions as when you were feeling totally confident? Yes or no? Absolutely not. When you're feeling loving versus angry, do you make different decisions? Yes or no? So the number one thing that's going to shape all evaluations is the state you're in. It is the single most important thing that's going to affect the way you evaluate in life. That's why I said to you, a decision made from fear is almost always the wrong decision. Right? Now, there are exceptions to all things. A decision made from fear, where it's a fight or flight, an emergency, that's probably the right decision. But in relationship, in business, and values, and in life, a decision made from fear is usually the wrong decision because it's a decision based on reaction. When you don't have to react. There are a few places where you have to react: survival. That's about it. So state massively affects the way we evaluate things, massively. And change the state, change the way you make decisions.

The second element was the form of a question. And that is, the questions that you ask powerfully shape all your decisions. Now, what is the number of variety of questions you could ask yourself? How many different questions could you ask yourself? It's infinite. But do you ask yourself an infinite diversity of questions? Do you think? Yes or no? No. Has been shown that the average human being has roughly 65,000 thoughts a day. They can document. The only problem is that the next day, you have roughly 95% of the same 65,000 thoughts as you did the day before. Because human beings are creatures of habit and a pattern. Because patterns provide the ability to make decisions quickly. We don't have to think everything through. So we tend to do the same things again and again. We keep using the same system.

What you're going to discover is that you have habitual questions. You ask a lot. You ask them most often. And they shape you. In fact, one of the most valuable distinctions I've ever made for myself or anybody else is called the primary question. Out of all the questions you ask, there is one singular question that controls your life. How could a question control your life? Well, think about it. What determines how you feel? Two primary things: the way you use your physiology and also what you focus on. Now, what you focus on can affect your physiology also, can it? So the truth of the matter is, based upon your life experience, when we talked about model the world, you have certain significant emotional events in life. Based on those significant emotional events, you learn how to meet your needs at some level. In order to do that, you developed a primary question that causes you to constantly focus for those things that will keep you out of the ultimate pain and get you towards the ultimate pleasure, based on what you think ultimate pain and pleasure is in your life. The challenge is, most of you are not even aware of what this question is consciously. And it totally controls your thoughts every moment you're alive.

The reason I came up with this is because I kept thinking about there are people that change their values, they change their rules, and they have changes, but then they revert back. And one reason is they didn't condition it. Makes sense, right? But I began to think, maybe there's something that overrides all this. And it is your primary question. So for some people, their primary question in life is, "What's wrong with me?" Well, it doesn't matter how much good they do. It doesn't matter how much success they have. Doesn't matter how many people love them. Ask, and you shall what? So if you ask a lousy question, you get a lousy what? It doesn't matter what it is. So this person is always feel screwed up, even though there's nothing wrong with it.

Or somebody asks questions like, "You know, how can I get people to love me?" What is the presupposition in that question? They don't love you. So no matter what they do, they're always rushing around trying to please everybody all the time. You know that kind of personality? That's the question that's driving it. When we change the question, we change the focus of your life. When you change the questions that you ask consistently, you change the system of living that you experience.

Do you also want to look at the questions you ask day to day? You have some predictable questions you ask in your relationship. Some of you keep asking like, "Will this last?" And by the way, if you keep asking that question, we can predict that's a cause. Emotion. Does it have an effect on your relationship? Does it have an effect on you emotionally? Does that accumulate and start to create a direction? And does that direction have a predictable destination or destiny? You bet it does. Some of you say, "Did I settle? Am I really with the right person?" You ask those kinds of questions, you got pain. Other people say, "How did they get so lucky to get you? Why did God make me so fortunate to find you?" Now, those questions, when you keep asking those, do those put a cause in motion? Do they have an effect? Do they create a destination of a great relationship? You bet.

So questions are an incredibly powerful lever for shifting the entire quality of any aspect of your life. In your business, same thing. They're habitual questions. So I want you to notice, questions carry with them beliefs. And the problem is, most of you don't realize that. See, if you say, "How long has it been since you beat your wife?" There's a little presupposition in there, right? And here's how the brain works. The brain's like the ultimate computer. Whatever you ask, it's got to come up with an answer. So even if there isn't an answer, it'll manufacture one. It'll come up with some shading or reference for it. So when you come along and you say, "What's wrong with me?" The brain doesn't ever stop and say, "Wait a second, is there anything wrong with me?" It just answers the question you give it. And it assumes you know what you're talking about. So it finds some reference to meet it. That's why you got to be so careful the questions you ask. And most of us are completely unconscious in our questions. And worse, we ask the same questions again and again. Therefore, we keep focusing on the same things. Therefore, we keep feeling the same things. Therefore, we keep reacting the same way. Therefore, we go into the same loop. And then other people react to whatever it is we've done, and vice versa. And we follow this.

By the way, why questions? These are the really great questions. These are known as endless loop questions. Because it's like, I remember one time, this guy, earlier in my career, I went to Denver, Colorado. I had a promoter that hired me to come in and do a seminar. And I did five firewalks in a row, every night. Because in those days, I did the whole firewalk. I didn't just teach it. But there was one lane. I was the front. I put you in state. I walked with you. I sprayed your feet. I came back to the next person. It was pretty intense. I did the whole thing. There were no cops. There's another part of the process to make that work. So I did this thing for five days. And then I did this weekend seminar. Was huge success. And then out of that, I did amazing. NBC covered me. ABC had a huge, huge coverage on a national scale. And then I was supposed to come back like 10 weeks later to another program. People are excited to bring their friends and everything else. And two weeks from I'm supposed to go there, I heard there was like tons of people signed up. The promoter calls me up and says, "Uh, we don't have enough people to put the event on." They're saying, "What? I've heard all these people." No, they just haven't followed through. They all talked about going, but they're not going through it. So he cancels the event with me. Which is pretty devastating for me at that point in my career. Was really beginning of my career. It was like 24. Two weeks later, I'm doing a seminar somewhere else. And somebody comes in and tells me the night before they were in Denver attending my seminar. But the guy that was promoting me, his son did my seminar. They tape-recorded the whole thing. He memorized it word for word. But here's the kicker. He got up, and in those days, during the firewalk, I would tell my personal story. And within it, I did embedded commands for certainty within people so they, when they went to walk on the fire, they wouldn't get hurt. He burned a bunch of people and stuff, right? So there's this big controversy. But he told my story as his life. His son, the man's son, is the one doing the speaking. So he sat back there while his son lied and did my seminar, my whole evening seminar, word for word, including my story. And I went berserk. They owed me like $150,000, which is a lot of money for me back then. And it's like, he cheated me out of $150 grand. He did the seminar without me. And they told the participants that I didn't show up. So they were moving ahead with the seminar, right? I went nuts. Are they insane? And I whip myself in this. I must ask 20 questions of why, why, why, why would they ever do this? Why? How could they? These are questions I could not answer because I never would. You follow that? Have you ever done that with yourself? How could this person do this? Why do they do? You won't figure it out because you never would. So of course, you can't answer. So all you do is stir yourself up more and more upset. Plus, you want to get overwhelmed. Here's the secret: Ask lots of questions way faster than you can answer them. I mean, why do they do this? What's the matter with them? How could they possibly do this? Your brain goes, "I haven't even answered the first question." Shut up. But you keep going. And pretty soon, your brain is overwhelming. Funny, you're just angry.

All right, how many can relate to this? Am I the only human who does this? I don't think so. Okay. So what happens is, I finally had to break it. So then I said, "Okay, I need some empowering questions." So I ask questions like, "Okay, what's great about this?" My brain went, "Nothing." So what could be great about this? If I wanted something great, I thought, "Well, what's great is at least he's using my stuff." And I'm cracking myself up. I said, "What's funny about this?" I thought, "What's funny about this is this guy is getting up telling my story, and people know it. You know, this is ridiculous." You know. And then I asked a really good question: "Will this even matter 10 years from now?" That was the question that changed me.

Well, does it even matter 10 years from now? Won't matter two weeks from now. Because I have this belief. My belief is, you never say to yourself, "Someday we'll look back and laugh about this." You know, because you're so mad. I think, "Why wait? You know, let's look back and laugh now." You know. So if you ask better questions. And my favorite questions like, "What can I learn from this? What's great from this? What's funny about this? What's ridiculous about this? Will this even matter 10 years from now? 20 years from now?" Those questions will get you out of a lousy state. So better questions give a better answer. You want better answers for your life? Gotta ask better questions. That's what you got to do. So questions of the second part of evaluations.

So now let's see what you've learned. Let's see if we can put this in action. Welcome back. We've learned a lot of great skills today. So let's take a minute and look at how we can take this information as leaders and use it. Tony just shared with us the destiny is ultimately the result of the actions we take and the decisions we are making. We also learned two elements of how someone filters their evaluations through the state they're in and the questions they ask. When helping someone create lasting change and defining their problem in solvable terms, we need to be listening for their evaluation process, noticing the state they're in and the questions they're asking themselves, how they're making decisions, and any neural associations they may have linked up that could be causing them pain. If we can help a person see that their model of evaluation may be what's causing their problem, we can then define it in a way that can be solved.

Let me give you a personal example of this. Do you remember the CEO I told you about who decided to fire his right-hand man? Well, let me tell you what happened next. He started building a story in his mind where he felt that he could not develop any close rapport anymore with any of his direct reports. The story in his mind was something like, "Okay, I cannot build any personal connection because that's a source of potential pain." However, the real problem was not building personal connection with his employees. It was the way he was evaluating the situation. What was giving him pain? He had associated all these negative feelings towards his direct reports. And through the stories he was building in his mind, he was creating a very disempowering situation for himself. And let me tell you, he's still dealing with this. We're working together to help him become more aware that it's not about the potential future pain of needing to fire someone else again, but it's about the value of the personal connection that he can build and that he should build with his direct reports in order to maximize their ability to fulfill the mission and their successful vision of the firm.

As you can see, once we're able to define the problem in a way that's solvable, we will be ready to move on to the next step, creating new empowering alternatives, which you'll learn more about in the next session. But I think you've had enough to think about today, right? It was a pretty long session. So I think you deserve some rest. So let me give your assignment before we wrap up. For today's assignment, I want you to think of a challenge either you are having, or ideally, talk to someone else about a problem they are having. As you listen to what's going on, or reflect or journal about your own challenge, I want you to look at what the root of the problem is and to define it in a way that can be solved. So go out now and do your assignment and have fun with it. We'll join Tony again tomorrow for step five of the seven masters steps, creating new empowering alternatives.

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